Executives Call for an End to Dependence on Foreign Oil

The New York Times published a story today about "Executives Urge Action to Cut Dependence on Foreign Oil." Here's the introduction:

More than a dozen prominent business executives and retired military officers, including the chairman of FedEx and a former commandant of the Marine Corps, are lobbying Congress and the White House to undertake a comprehensive campaign to reduce reliance on imported oil.

Frederick W. Smith, the founder and chief executive of FedEx, is part of a group that wants much tougher fuel economy standards for vehicles. The group, which includes top executives from the chemical, trucking and airline industries, wants much tougher fuel economy standards, not only on cars and sport utility vehicles, but also on heavy trucks, which some of the companies use. They want increased drilling offshore and within the United States, a much harder push for ethanol and other biofuels, and other changes that would permanently reduce the importance of oil as a strategic commodity and an economic force.

While the group, called the Energy Security Leadership Council, has embraced no startling new ideas, it hopes that evidence of broad support from business and military leaders will add the weight needed to get its proposals adopted.

It is about time that some leaders with national prominence step up to the plate on this issue. Energy experts and petroleum geologists have been warning for some time that we have reached the level of peak oil production and that world supplies are dwindling.

Here are links to a couple podcasts in which Oklahoma Petroleum Geologist Bob Stephenson discusses peak oil and some ways to address it. July 2005 interview and August 2005 interview.

These podcasts are still the most popular downloads from the archives of the "Religious Talk" radio program.